Written by
Benjamin Daniels
4 mins read
7 Tournament organizers tools | Pros & Cons
To be a great tournament organizer, you need a tournament maker that suits your needs. So how do you go about finding the right one? Organizing gaming tournaments is a proven way to build an engaged audience. Whether you’re a brand or an (e)sports organization, there are many types of tournament generators out there. Picking the right one will be detrimental to your marketing, engagement, and monetization strategy.
To help you get started, we’ll run down the pros & cons of the 7 top gaming tournament makers.
- The all-in-one tournament maker: StriveCloud
- Toornament is a robust suite of tools for tournament organizers
- Battlefy connects gamers with tournament organizers
- Award Pool is a progressive tournament maker with WEB3 features
- Challonge simplifies tournaments for gaming communities
- Tournify is a simple but effective tournament generator
- Start.gg a no-nonsense tournament maker
The all-in-one tournament maker: StriveCloud
StriveCloud brings together competition, community & content all in one central platform. Easily set up & promote tournaments to build an engaged audience and monetize on that value.
Pros
- Brings together competition, community & content in 1 central platform
- A wide array of monetization opportunities from sponsor visibility to buy-in tournaments, premium packages, and shop items
- You own all the 1st party data!
- Comes with gamification features like leveling systems, badges & rewards to keep gamers engaged
- Entirely white-labeled so you can establish your own brand (or even re-sell to clients)
Cons
- No free trial is available
- Works better with an internal admin to manage the platform
- It might take a while to learn how to maximize the full feature set
- You need to have a sound user acquisition strategy
StriveCloud’s tournament organizer in action
Our tournament generator is used by leading esports agencies, sports organizations, and brands. Let’s look at how some of our clients put it to good use:
Tobias Egartner, CEO @eStudios – “We are really good at organising FIFA competitions. StriveCloud is really good at making the platform work for the community.” – check out the case study!
Toornament is a robust suite of tools for tournament organizers
French tournament maker Tournament is a suite of tools designed for tournament organizers, agencies & game studios. It’s a great fit to organize tournaments for fun or professionally. But what is their platform like?
Pros
- 2-week free trial to explore
- All-in-one participant registration
- Free plan for small, friendly tournaments
- Max 100 participants per match (equals that of popular titles like Fortnite)
- Mixed participant seeding (randomization, customization, or both)
- “What You See Is What You Get” website builder
Cons
By far the biggest drawback of Toornament however, is the lack of community features. Without social features like a feed and chat, it is harder to monetize engagement and get the growth benefits that come with a tight-knit community.
There are a few more snags:
- Toornament is an API, not an owned tournament organizer platform
- No white-label website or widgets for free & starter plans
- You don’t own data on user activity – Toornament “handles it on your behalf”
- No gamification features to keep players engaged
- No built-in monetization features
- Free users are limited in features, including a 128-participant cap
- Worse still, no direct customer support at all until you pay €199 per month
Battlefy connects gamers with tournament organizers
Battlefy is an easy-to-use tournament organizer that connects gamers with brands, (e)sports organizations, and game publishers.
Pros
Battlefy’s biggest USP is that they are 100% free to use. Therefore, this makes it ideal for startups, influencers, and friendly communities.
- Supports over 40,000 games
- Many tournament formats
- Automatic score reporting & match statistics
- Customizable to your needs
Cons
However, the free software comes with a hitch. Some gamers also report that finding people to play with can be hard, as the community for many games has become inactive.
- Tournaments are hosted on a subdomain of their platform, so not white-label
- No gamified loyalty features to keep gamers engaged
- Only major game publishers get to provide prizes
- Limited to direct integration for just 13 games
- UI is text-heavy and uninviting
- Support for smaller organizations & players is limited to live-chat
Award Pool is a progressive tournament maker with WEB3 features
Award Pool leans heavily on the tech enthusiast audience. From an NFT reward system to integration with the Discord bot, their platform is pushing boundaries.
Pros
- Can develop achievements based on over 1000 pre-defined game triggers
- Discord bot integration helps you communicate with your gamers
- Demo test feature for tournaments
- Feedback and survey tools
- Built-in donation and payment system
Cons
- Award Pool takes a 4% commission from transactions
- Focus on NFTs may turn away gamers who see no value in the reward
- NFTs are locked to the platform (unless users pay)
- UI comes with a hefty learning curve to appreciate its complexity
Challonge simplifies tournaments for gaming communities
Challonge is a tournament maker owned by tech giant Logitech – and according to their website their platform has hosted 31,036,231 brackets! So what can Challonge do?
Pros
- Easy-to-use bracket maker which is free to use
- Create & manage event pages to promote your tournament
- It’s quick to sign up for and easy to use for new users
Cons
- No white-label portal – personalized subdomain only
- Monetization opportunities are limited to paid tournaments only
- Data access is limited to event registrations & tournament outcomes
- Lack of gamified features to boost player engagement
- Match documentation limited to 250KB for free users, 25MB for premium (still not enough for a recorded video of matches, for instance)
Tournify is a simple but effective tournament generator
Dutch tournament maker Tournify targets both traditional sports and esports – offering simplicity to both. And while their platform has a free tier and is easy to use, it’s actually a little too simple for anything but the most basic tournament.
Pros
- Accessible demo to test platform
- Customized branding on the tournament page
- Tournaments are accessible in Tournify mobile app
- Easy to get started as a new tournament organizer or football club
- Also works for live events
Cons
- Monetization is limited to sponsor visibility (only at the highest tier)
- No gamification features to incentivize engagement
- Limited insights from player activity
- Participants must input the scores themselves
- Not ideal if you organize over 10 tournaments per year
- No community tools or built-in chat functions (must integrate with Discord)
Start.gg a no-nonsense tournament maker
Formerly known as Smash, the Microsoft-owned Start.gg is one of the most established tournament generators on the market. Their marketing boasts “no premium plans, no tournament organizer charges, no NFT shenanigans”. But what do they actually offer?
Pros
- Active community makes finding game(r)s easy
- Advanced tournament discovery
- Completely free – no commission/fees
- Weekly Q&A session for customer support
Cons
- No white-label platform
- Monetization tools limited to reward shops & donations
- Lack of community features outside of Discord
- No gamification elements to keep players engaged
- Support for paid tournament entry only for the top game titles
